Explore more wonderful features of Gmail

Though most know about Gmail‘s key features including its 7+ GB of storage space, powerful spam filters and threaded conversations, the power of Gmail as an email client goes well beyond those, bullet point features.

Through a combination of less-used tools, a labs system that is constantly introducing new, experimental features and other hidden tricks in the Gmail system, Gmail is more than the most compelling webmail service, but is also possibly the most useful email client available of any kind.

That being said, some of the best features either are hidden away under layers or aren’t turned on by default, making Gmail some of its hidden options well worth exploring.

If you’re looking to get the most out of your Gmail experience, here are five of the most important and useful Gmail features you might have missed or could be underusing.

Priority Inbox

Introduced just last year, Priority Inbox has done more to separate Gmail as an email client than almost any other feature on the list and is a virtual must-have for anyone who gets more than a few dozen emails per day.

Odds are, if you’re like most people, you get a variety of email in your inbox ranging from important letters from your friends and coworkers to newsletters and announcements. Some of the emails you need and want to read immediately, others can wait.

What Priority Inbox does is sort your email into what’s important and what isn’t, putting the important stuff on top in a separate list. This feature does require some training and, for the first week or so will make some bad guesses, but once it learns it becomes completely natural.

If you haven’t enabled Priority Inbox, you do so in your settings. You can also customize it to change the types information it displays.

Infinite Email Addresses

Your Gmail account doesn’t just come with one email address assigned to it, but with a literally infinite number of potential addresses that you can use.

By simply adding a + after your username (IE: username+something@gmail.com) you can create iterations of your email address you can give out for various purposes. For example, if you sign up for an email newsletter, you can use username+newsletter@gmail.com and that will let you create filters based on that incoming email address. Best of all, should that address get leaked to spammers, you can simply block all mail coming to it without sacrificing your whole account.

It’s a simple trick that can save you a lot of time and headache. However, some newsletters and sites have grown wise to it and don’t allow users to sign up with email addresses that have a “+” in them. Still, it will likely work on many of the sites you do need to register on.

Undo Send

Gmail, like most webmail services, has a strange quirk where sent mail is not immediately pushed out. Since all of the accounts share a single outgoing server, it is instead queued to go out and there is a delay of a few moments, barely noticeable but also very useful.

By enabling Undo Send in your Gmail Labs, you can take advantage of this feature and never accidentally send an email again. Once an email is sent, you’ll have about 45 seconds to cancel it. Not enough to stop a bad email if you realize the mistake an hour later, but more than enough to catch an accidental press of the “Send” button or if you realize you made another mistake.

In short, you can stop a large percentage of your email mistakes by setting up this feature and having a quick trigger finger.

Canned Responses

Another labs feature, Canned Responses is a powerful tool for anyone who sends out the same or very similar email repeatedly.

Basically, Canned Responses lets you create templates for your email and then either reply or start a new message with that template. This is great for sending out forms, stock responses on any other correspondence that is largely the same from conversation to conversation.

Gmail Interface, Your Email Address

Finally, Gmail has the ability to send and receive email at any account that you have. So long as you have POP3 access to the account, Gmail can both send and receive email at that address.

There are actually several ways to do this. The simplest is to have Gmail check your account and then send mail as it, which it can even do using your existing SMTP server. You can also have your existing account forward a copy of your email to Gmail, which requires only moments to set up at your existing account.

However, if you want to completely eliminate the middle man and simply have Google host your email, you can set up a free Google Apps account for your domain and use Gmail as if it were your local email server, complete with IMAP and POP3 access to your mail.

No matter which solution you choose, this lets you have Gmail’s interface, spam filtering and ease of access at any email address you choose.

All in all, as compelling as these features are, the best thing about Gmail is that it is constantly improving. Not only is Google adding regular updates to Gmail itself, but the Labs system and the addition of Gadgets means that there’s constantly new tools and features to be found.

Your Gmail experience can be almost completely customized to make it the most powerful and useful system for your needs, something no other webmail client can say, especially for free.

Also read: Google -The Powerhouse
                  Optimize your Internet connection


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Make your Internet connection Faster

An internet connection at home has made things easier and using which you can gain access to any part of the world without much difficulty. You can connect with people and also gather information you want from the various websites regardless of the time and limit. With the number of internet users growing by the day, there have been advancements in the internet connections. Hi-speed and wireless internet connections have made their foray into the market and created a niche for themselves. But to keep your internet connections faster you need to follow a few steps.

• One of the main reasons for the slowing down of the internet connections is the greater number of cookies that are saved in your computer. Most of the websites have the cookies installed to your computer so that you can use it later when needed. You need to clear them off every now and then by selecting the Tools tab and delete the offline content in “Internet Options”.
• There are also certain spyware or adware that considerably decreases the speed of the internet as well as the computer. Remove such spyware and find a free spyware online and have it installed to your computer so that the internet works faster.
• Some software can also slow down your computer. You need to find the software that creates trouble and get it removed or disables immediately. This can speed up your computer. You also need to remove the browsing history that is present in the Internet Options in the Control Panel.
• Make sure your telephone connection is proper if you have a dial-up service. If there are noises and distortions in the line you can conclude that there are issues in the line. You need to get that problem fixed at once.
• Your browser can also work fast if you disable the images and active content like videos and animations. Do this by un checking the “Show Pictures”, “Play Sounds”, “Play Videos”, “Play Animation”, boxes under the Multimedia options present in the Network and Internet Connections in Control Panel and Click OK.
• The internet connection can also get slower if there is accumulation of dust in the modem. Clear your modem off the dust after unplugging it and then run your internet connection. Also make sure if the other connections from the modem to your computer are in place.

Also Read : Your free device Windows media Player has amazing potential


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